


Little Known Fact

by ani_bester



Category: Avengers (Comics), Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Captain America
Genre: Embarrassment, Fluff, Multi, Other, Surprise Party, embarrassing secret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-04
Updated: 2012-11-04
Packaged: 2017-11-17 23:19:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/554308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ani_bester/pseuds/ani_bester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve gets one last present from a small group of his closest friends, but their is an minor agenda behind Bucky's gift.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Known Fact

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to jynx for being my beta at the very last minutes. Also, the book in this story really does exist and is exactly as I say it is in the fic. I for one found the book to be interesting.

The surprise party had gone well, Tony thought as he sat and watched Bucky and Sam try to prevent Steve from helping with the clean up. Steve kept picking up trash bags, only to have them snatched away by Bucky while Sam lectured Steve about how Steve did not need to clean up after a party thrown for him. 

As he wrapped up his latest lecture, Sam glared in Tony’s direction. Tony smiled back, grabbed a cup, and tossed it toward the trash bag Bucky held. Without looking, Bucky blocked it, sending the plastic cup spiraling to the floor. 

“Help like the rest of us,” Bucky said, kicking the cup back into the air, and then hitting back to Tony. Tony caught it and went and deposited it in the trash compactor right before Natasha turned it on. 

“I hope that’s not your sole contribution to the clean up,” Natasha said. Tony knew that particular hand on hip posture didn’t bode well for him.

“So far it has been,” Sharon mumbled as she walked past Tony with a pile of dirty plates and waited for the trash to finish compacting. 

Tony smiled at her as he took the plates off her hands. “I’m used to delegating,” Tony explained, “And besides, I’ve done more than Mr. Leadfoot over there.” He looked in the direction of Clint who laid sprawled across the couch recounting some story to a very amused looking Steve. 

“Yet you’ve done less than Steve,” Sam said with a glare and a shake of the trash bag in his hands that promised Tony would be on trash duty before the nights end. 

“It’s true,” Steve said, and he grabbed Clint by the arm and dragged him over to Tony. “The two of you have been watching more than helping.” Steve pulled two more trash bags from the box and handed them to Clint and Tony. “It’s still my birthday, technically, and I should get what I want, right?” 

Tony looked at the room taking in the wealth of dirty plates and plastic glasses, not all of which had remained upright, that remained even after the cleaning assault of Natasha, Bucky, Sam, and Sharon. “You know, Steve, I could go build something that would clean those rugs stains and –“

He stopped when he felt Steve’s hand on his shoulder. “Tony, Clint, go pick up the crepe paper.” His look managed to be threatening, Tony noted, even if Steve couldn’t quite get his voice there. 

As Tony walked toward the area most afflicted with crepe-paper damage he gave Steve an annoyed look over his shoulder. “See if we ever have decorative paper in patriotic colors for you again, Steve.” Tony bent to pick up some of the red paper then paused and stood back up and glanced around the room. “What about Steve’s present? The one we felt would be better suited to a smaller audience?” Tony caught Steve giving him a questioning look and put on his best poker face. “C’mon, this isn’t a stall. The room won’t get any dirtier if we take a moment here.” Bucky and Sam looked unconvinced, but Sharon had already gone to the closet to pull out the gift.

“How much is this going to hurt?” Steve asked in a dry voice. 

“Not much, Steve,” Sharon said, coming over with a package wrapped in red and blue with a white bow around it. The object was a rectangle shape that suggested a coffee table book of some kind. Taking it from Sharon, Steve thanked everyone and then opened it.

As soon as it was revealed, Tony had to keep himself from laughing out loud as Steve’s face turned as red as the wrapping paper and gave Sharon a look akin to a boy caught with his hands in a cookie jar.   
Steve looked back down at the gift and studied the cover for a long time, as though he couldn’t read the title. “For The Boys: The Racy Pin-Ups of World War II,” he finally read out loud while starting from one person to the other. 

A quick peek inside the book caused Steve to blush even more. Tony grinned, knowing the pinups weren’t the sanitized ones often found on nostalgia items these days, but the actual art that had been painted on the noses of planes. 

“James Buchanan Barnes, you snitch,” Steve said, but he couldn’t hold the frown for long and ended up sheepishly smiling at Bucky. 

Tony sighed and with a shake of his head, pulled out two hundred dollar bills and passed them to Bucky. “He said you’d say that,” Tony explained. “I manned up and made the fool’s bet against him when no one else would.”

Steve stared at Bucky again, this time with eyes wide with realization, “You didn’t-“

“Nope,” Clint said as he went over and slung his arm around Steve, “But now you have, and I think we’d all like to know what it is you thought Bucky told us.”

“Give it up, Steve,” Sharon laughed, “You’ve got three spies in here, and three stubborn men who won’t lay off until you tell.” 

“It’s not any big thing.”

“It’s making your face redder than the book’s cover” Sam said. “We want to know, and we will find out.” 

“It’s really not anything big, really.” Steve began looking from the eager face of Sharon to the amused expression Sam was giving him. “It’s just… I used to paint these is all, umm actually painted some in this book.”

There was a moment of silence and then the room erupted into laughter and Clint loudly wondered if Steve still painted naked girls.

Steve stood in the center of it blushing, but grinning. When Bucky came up and snatched the book from Steve, Tony noted that Steve didn’t try too hard to stop him, nor did he say anything when Bucky began holding up the particular paintings that were Steve’s. 

Steve even smiled proudly once or twice.


End file.
